No Gaza Referendum, Sharon Says

JERUSALEM -- Buoyed by a key victory in parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in interviews published Wednesday that he would not submit his Gaza Strip withdrawal plan to a national vote even though four Cabinet ministers have threatened to resign.

"My opinion on the matter of a national referendum is known. There will be no referendum on [withdrawal], as the ones behind this initiative are interested in sabotaging" the plan, Sharon told Israel's biggest-circulation daily newspaper, Yediot Aharonot.

Sharon's comments came after the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, approved his plan Tuesday night to remove Jewish settlers and soldiers from the Gaza Strip and a portion of the West Bank.

Opinion polls show the withdrawal, scheduled for next summer, enjoys broad support among the Israeli public but has created deep divisions within Sharon's right-leaning Likud Party. Although the measure passed by a 67-45 margin, nearly half of the 40-member Likud faction voted no.

After the tumultuous two-day Knesset debate, there was little overt politicking on the issue Wednesday as Israel continued a somber commemoration of the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Rabin was shot during a rally, by a law student who opposed an interim peace agreement with the Palestinians. Israeli officials have expressed fears that Jewish extremists might attempt to kill Sharon or carry out some other violent act to block the removal of Jews from land that many settlers view as their biblical birthright.

At a memorial ceremony in Jerusalem attended by Sharon, Rabin's daughter, Dalia Rabin, said recent calls to resist the pullout echoed the incendiary rhetoric that preceded her father's death.